Abstract art is all aboutenergy–exactly what we all need at the start of the year. The widely taught and accepted story up until very recently posited that Wassily Kandinksy “invented” abstract painting; his “Aquarelle Abstraite” has been canonized as the first ever created. Although it’s dated 1910, experts believe that it was actually painted in 1913 as a study for larger works and backdated by Kandinsky himself in order to prove that he was the pioneer (smart marketing!). Piet Mondrian, too, claimed to invent the form. He wrote extensively about abstraction as he explored it alongside fellow male artists Kandinsky, Frantisek Kupka, Robert Delaunay and Francis Picabia, all of whom began showing their new work across Europe in 1912.\xa0 | 
